The "Childmyths" blog is a spin-off of Jean Mercer's book "Thinking Critically About Child Development: Examining Myths & Misunderstandings"(Sage, 2015; third edition). The blog focuses on parsing mistaken beliefs that can influence people's decisions about childrearing-- for example, beliefs about day care, about punishment, about child psychotherapies, and about adoption.
See also http://thestudyofnonsense.blogspot.com

change the world badge

feedspot

Concerned About Unconventional Mental Health Interventions?

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Time-Outs, Time-Ins: Good, Bad, and Badly Misunderstood

A brief article published a couple of years ago in Time magazine is still getting a lot of
attention. This piece, written by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, was
entitled “ ‘Time-Outs’ Are Hurting Your Child” (www.time.org/3404701/discipline-time-out-is-not-good/
). Siegel and Bryson began with the statement that painful experiences can
“change the structure of the brain” (though
they did not follow up by saying what behavioral or mood changes might result,
if any). They noted that emotional pain activates the same brain areas as
physical pain, commented that isolation can be emotionally painful, and
concluded that children who were temporarily isolated in “time-out” may be
damaged by the experience. They advised that “time-out” should give way to
“time-in” to give increased experience of warm affection.

Members of the Society of Clinical Child and
Adolescent Psychology, Division 53 of the American Psychological Association,
have been quite concerned about the inaccuracies in these statements. In a
press release headed “Outrageous claims regarding the appropriateness of Time
Out have no basis in science”, members of the division pointed out the highly
selective cherry-picking of neurological evidence that Siegel and Bryson made
use of, and noted that there were decades of research supporting the safety and
efficacy of “time out”, and little or none supporting “time in”.

The efforts of Siegel and Bryson to argue that “time
outs” or harmful were characterized by a common theme among pitchers of
woo-- that when the brain is “changed”
by events, that the outcome is of necessity a bad one. This ignores the fact
that the brain is constantly changing in structure and function because of
maturational factors, and is simultaneously being changed as memories of
experiences of all kinds are formed. The outcomes of these changes are
generally positive, so it is absurd to present “changes in the brain” as
evidence of harm. The first problem is to show that an experience (“time out”,
for instance) is regularly followed by undesirable behavioral or attitudinal
changes; if this had been accomplished, which it has not, the next step would
be to trace the brain events that cause the connection between the experience
and the bad outcome.

Like all other organisms, children change their
behavior in response to reinforcing events that follow behaviors. If something
nice happens after you do something, you become more likely to repeat that
action. Unfortunately, sometimes behaviors that other people do not want or
like get reinforced by accident. For example, most children will cut back on a
behavior that gets them scolded and yelled at, but a child who gets very little
attention may find that being focused on by an angry adult has reinforcing
power. It’s not the yelling itself, but the attention, that reinforces the
behavior. Similarly, a preschool child who acts up may find that although the
teacher does not reinforce the behavior, all the other kids are excited and
interested and attentive-- that
reinforces the behavior and makes it more likely to be repeated.

If children are “being bad” because an undesirable
behavior has been reinforced in the past, the unwanted behavior can be reduced
by making sure that it does not get reinforced. The purpose of “time out” is to prevent
reinforcement by removing the child temporarily from a potentially reinforcing
situation. If done consistently, this is an effective approach--- but ONLY if
the unwanted behavior has reached its present frequency because it was
reinforced in some way by the social environment.

If a behavior is self-reinforcing, like eating when
hungry, scratching an itch, or masturbating, unless it has also been socially
reinforced, “time-out” will not affect its frequency. Neither will “time-out”
reduce seizures or periods of inattentiveness due to neurological disorders, or
fearful behavior stemming from previous traumatic experiences, or
attention-getting behavior resulting from the absence of normal adult
attention. The reason to choose a method other than “time-out” is that a
specific behavior may not have developed as a result of reinforcement, and it
will not diminish as a result of non-reinforcement. Under those circumstances, “time-in”
and increased interaction with an adult may be helpful to a child who needs
social support in order to do his or her best.

“Time-out” is not always the best choice-- but this is not because it “changes the brain”
in some mysterious but threatening way.

P.S. Then there’s my two-year-old granddaughter, who
when sent to “time-out” trots off looking very pleased with herself as she does
just what her older brother is sent to do! Is this experiencing actually
reinforcing for her? Maybe, but after all she wasn’t so very naughty to begin
with…

About Me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Mercer

Jean Mercer has a Ph.D in Psychology from Brandeis University, earned when that institution was 20 years old (you do the math). She is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Richard Stockton College, where for many years she taught developmental psychology, research methods, perception, and history of psychology. Since about 2000 her focus has been on potentially dangerous child psychotherapies, and she has published several related books and a number of articles in professional journals.
Her CV can be seen at http://childmyths.blogspot.com/2009/12/curriculum-vitae-jean.mercer-richard.html.